Sunday Reflection with Canon Robin Gibbons - 4th October 2026

Giotto - Scenes from the Life of St Francis

Twenty Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
and Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi and 800th Anniversary of his death

I write this in gentle recuperation in my family village in France. Surrounding me are the forests and lakes of the first plateau of the Alps in the Jura Department of the Bourgogne-Franche Comte Region, but particularly in this locale of the great vine growing region of what is called the Triangle' D'Or, the area bounded by the towns of Poligny, Arbois, and Salins, famous for it's wines. So the first reading and the Gospel have clear resonances with my own ancestral peoples and their viticulture.

I have a few vines in our garden for me to educate myself in the work of my forbears, planted by a priest cousin who has his family vineyard to look after in his retirement. I don't have many, but enough to create a wonderful double fence of green tendrils to keep me concerned and interested in their well being and growth.

In the region, the grape harvest has taken place. It's not a good year for size and quantity, but an excellent year for flavour and sugar content. 2026 will be, despite the great drought of the summer, a good albeit small vintage.

But this link allows me to understand the two tales of vineyards better. They are enterprises, part of an economy and worth much Part of the work is to care for and tend the vines, for if they get diseased or are neglected so that they become overgrown by weeds or allowed to mutate, then the value of everything crashes. Much is at stake!

With that in mind it is understandable that any vineyard producing nothing is worthless, and that Jesus' parable of the leased vineyard and the appalling behaviour of the tenants, resonates at various levels with classic tales of just and unjust landlords and good and bad tenants. The behaviour of this group is quite appalling and the tragedy of the death of the son and heir, dreadful in its simplicity. One doesn't want to overdramatise the complexity of the tale, and it is clear, isn't it, that Jesus is linking the metaphor of Israel as God's Vineyard, with himself as the son and heir who will be put to death? But part of the tale is hidden from us, although it is about us! Unlike the unjust tenants whose end is ruin and absolutely final, we are the tenants with a hopeful ending. We are those ( we sincerely hope) who will take care of the Lord's vineyard, tend, water, dig, hoe, manure and prune in it, and produce good fruit . Here is what the Lord Jesus is saying to us now: 'Therefore, I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruit'. (Mt 21: 43)

There is a very real liturgical remembrance of this passage in our Byzantine Liturgy. The bishop reminds us that we are the new vineyard of the Lord, precious vines to be treasured, when he comes out of the sanctuary doors just after the singing of the Trisagion ( Holy is God) holding the trikerion and dikerion (two- and three-branched candle stands with lit candles) and a blessing cross, he makes the sign of the cross and blesses the people facing in different directions as he sings:

"Lord, Lord, look down from heaven and see. Bless this vineyard which your right hand has planted".

May the Lord help us to be faithful workers in the Church to build up the Kingdom amongst us. Amen.

A Coda on St Francis

I could not leave my reflection without some mention of Francis of Assisi whose 800th anniversary of death we celebrate on October 4th, and for whom I have great affection as a friend and the saint on whose feast I received my baptism!

His gift to the Church of today is immense, for he, the poor man and brother of Christ, reveals to us the love of God for all creation, the highest and the lowest, those loved and those unwanted ones of our Mother Earth. I have always been immensely moved by his own openness and love towards creatures, particularly in the stories of his relationships with creatures, of the wolf of Gubbio whom he tamed, and my favourite story of his wonderful sermon to the birds. But there are also lesser known tales of his care of creatures including a fish, a rabbit, the falcon whom he befriended and the lambs he bought at market to save them from slaughter.

AndI have a sneaking admiration for his love of the cicada's song. In St Bonaventure's legend of St Francis, he tells of a cicada that would perch near St Francis's cell, and upon Francis command , would land on his hand and then sing praises to God for eight days, before receiving permission from the saint to depart. Some see these tales as sentimental, for me they are the actions of a person who has woken up to know and perceive the blessing of God in, with and for all creation.

Pope Leo writing about this anniversary of St Francis to the Ministers General of the Franciscan Family gives us one more gift from our brother St Francis to all of us:

'At the beginning of his evangelical life, he heard a call: "The Lord revealed to me that we should say this greeting: "May the Lord give you peace". With these essential words, he conveys to his friars and to every believer the inner wonder that the Gospel had brought into his life: peace is the sum of all God's gifts, a gift that comes from above. What an illusion it would be to think that it can be built by human efforts alone! And yet it is an active gift, to be welcomed and lived every day….

The Franciscan vision of peace is not limited to the relations between human beings, but also embraces the whole of creation. Francis, who calls the sun "brother" and the moon "sister", who recognizes in every creature a reflection of divine beauty, reminds us that peace must be extended to the entire family of Creation. This insight resonates with particular urgency in our time, when our common home is threatened and cries out under exploitation. Peace with God, peace among human beings and with creation are inseparable dimensions of a single call to universal reconciliation'. (Leo XIV Letter on the occasion of the opening of the Eighth Centenary of the death of Saint Francis of Assisi, 10.01.2026)

May we be granted the vision and love of St Francis and through his intercession begin to embrace in peace and love the whole of our wounded creation, and may the Lord give us all His peace!

Lectio

Peace Prayer of St Francis

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is error, the truth;
Where there is doubt, the faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled, as to console;
To be understood, as to understand;
To be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.

Prayer of Pope Leo XIV

Saint Francis, our brother, you who eight hundred years ago
went to meet Sister Death as a man at peace,
intercede for us before the Lord.

You recognized true peace in the Crucifix of San Damiano,
teach us to seek in Him the source of all reconciliation
that breaks down every wall.

You who, unarmed, crossed the lines of war
and misunderstanding,
give us the courage to build bridges
where the world raises up boundaries.

In this time afflicted by conflict and division,
intercede for us so that we may become peacemakers:
unarmed and disarming witnesses of the peace that comes from Christ.

Amen